When We Were

by Diana Elliot Graham

He looks down at me and something breaks free, not sure if he had tried to contain it, but a smile spread slowly across his face, and he lets out a small, huffed laugh in a way that inspired one of my own. Without even understanding the cause.

he is the sun

“Did you know this is one of my favorite tee shirts?”

WHY DO YOU THINK SHE WORE IT

Knowing the significance that we had to go our separate ways. Not just in this moment, but in all the ones that follow. I wrapped my arms around him once more, quickly, before he can react.

:(((

“I can’t imagine my life if I hadn’t.” He smiles with resignation, and looks so handsome standing here, the sun climbing in the sky, as his full lips and perfect teeth charmed me just as they did the first time he smiled at me.

I CANT IMAGIN EMY LIFE IF I HADNT

“Email me or something, I’ll want to hear all about your travels this summer.” And that was it. He leaned down to kiss my cheek, and we both walked our separate ways.

this hurts

I can’t describe the feeling of walking into that coffee shop and thinking she didn’t show.

he didnt see her on their table

Maybe it was an unfair expectation. Maybe I should not expect anything from her now, she set that standard the night she broke up with me. But I did expect things from her. That’s partially how I ended up here. Both in this moment, and in this situation.

REID YOU SHOULDVE ASKED HER ABOUT IT

I’m not going to chase after her when she made it clear that’s not what she wants. This isn’t a romcom where I show up at the train station with flowers or make some sweeping proclamation of love and apology under the glow of a streetlight.

this is how you lose

After all, how many people find the love of their life at twenty-two anyways.

YOU ALMOST DID

coffee shop, and our table was empty. We weren’t those people anymore. When we were them, we would have been at that table for hours.

poorly lit table against the opposite wall, I knew we weren’t them. She did too, that’s why she chose a different seat.

nooooo

I wondered what would have happened, if I hadn’t been delayed by a few minutes this morning.

you would've seen that the table was occupied and you would've moved their with arden after that guy left.

Those twenty minutes cost me our table.

it cost you the love of your life

When she throws her arms around me, I want to pull her more deeply into me. To walk with her in my chest, back to the place it all began, and this time not let her call it closure.

can’t imagine my life if I hadn’t.” I smile at her resigned to the fact that while we might not have a future, I loved her. That’s something I am grateful for, even if it isn’t permanent, it can’t be undone.

I want her friendship, and I’ll ask for it as she did, I’ll make sure she knows.

But if I want her friendship, which she is offering, this is how it has to be. The feeling of her skin on my lips is gone faster than I can commit it to memory. I smile and turn to walk away.

it hurts

pull up the first song that reminds me of her, knowing that when I get to my front door, it’s over. ‘Short Skirt/Long Jacket’ by Cake comes through and drowns out the noise in my head. All I can see is her standing there looking at me. In that ridiculous donkey shirt.

It’s a lot like her. It’s bold, challenging, political, but clever. Damn, it’s downright funny.

she is the best

The way I imagined her in the future, underneath her cap and gown, in all the other memories and photos we would capture. But right now, I don’t think there’s any image I’ll enjoy more than this one. In that fucking tee shirt. It wasn’t easy to take the step back, to walk away. To turn around and leave, taking with me only that image of her. Because she had taken the one from my apartment after it shattered on the floor, and she had already wiped any memory of us from social media.

her deleting him from his socials is a different kind of pain like i hope she archived it and not deleted it completely

She looked at me, and as I turned, her eyes captured the light, and I swear they looked on fire. That impossibly hot blue gas flame that darkens around the edge.

alexa play girl on fire

We won’t be who we were when we were them. Who we were when we were happy in the blissful ignorance of ‘young love’ or whatever it is people say to be cliché. Whatever it is, people call it to make you feel like you’re under a common spell and prepare you for the idea that it isn’t permanent in any way that matters. And you aren’t unique for

We won’t be who we were. But we will both be who we should.

this quote.

There was space between us, both physically and emotionally, but perhaps sitting at this table, for the first time in all these years we finally had closed the distance we had put there to protect our hearts,

As time went on, the time we spent apart became longer than the time we had spent together.

You can love a memory without loving the person. And as I look at him, I know that the love we have for each other in this moment is that.

</3

“There was a time I hoped you were lonely and miserable. It’s a shitty thing to say, but it’s the truth. I was mad at you for so long, mad at myself because of you. Even after I saw you. When you asked to be friends, I had hoped you regretted what you did. What I thought you did,”

you should've made a move.

It wasn’t just young love meant to burn hot and burn out. Then I watched you move on; I took another step back. We couldn’t be close friends, but we could be acquaintances. Knowing that it would be easier for me that way.

“So it doesn’t matter how we choose to remember what happened between us. I know two things...” He looks deep in my eyes, preparing himself for something that seems difficult to admit. “One.” He holds up a finger, and lets the soft smile pull on his lips. “I loved you.” “Two.” He extends a second finger, and the smile falls flat. “Not enough.”

ONE I LOVED YOU. TWO NOT ENOUGH.

“Not this time,” he looks at the screen, “but it is a wakeup call.” He answers the call and smiles at me with apology. For what, I’m not yet sure.

“Reid, I think you’re right. That was a wakeup call. One we both clearly needed. We should probably get the bill.”

i think this is the last time they met in person i think they both went their separate ways. not trading anymore books or coffees.

Arden sat there, sipping her tea, with her wedding ring adorned hand resting softly on the slight curve of her belly, but it grounded her. I can tell. It pulls her back into her reality

arden deserves her hea

Picked up by the wind pulled into the clouds. Had we continued with this much longer, it would have been very possible for the string to snap all together and I would just float away. Until my phone rang.

reid :(

“Do you want dessert? Coffee? Hot chocolate?”

okay this book has ruined hot chocolate and croissants for me

With that, she pulls the lever once more and puts us back on track. This time, separately. Two trolleys that are coming up to the same potential fork, each one ready to split off and follow the individual track to the appropriate destination.

Where she told me she wanted to be friends. In all ways but the important one. She doesn’t say that this time. Maybe knowing, like I do, that it might be too hard for us to go back to that. We knew too much now, about how we felt, what had happened. Things I haven’t even fully been able to consider the impact of.

yeah they definitely lose touch

Under the glow of the streetlight, her hair is golden and her skin is porcelain. Freckles spotted across her nose make her look young as she looks up at me, and all I can see is her then.

she is beautiful

Standing on the corner outside the coffee shop, in that silly political tee shirt. She stole my breath away. But I would never be the thief of her happiness.

We can either stoke them, feed them the oxygen they need to grow into flames again, knowing that that fire would burn down the lives we’ve made, or we could suffocate them. Instead, taking the deep breaths we need to fill our own lungs with air and allow ourselves to breathe.

The corners of our mouths so narrowly missing it feels like I’m holding two magnets separate from each other that are desperate to snap together. But I don’t let them go. Neither does she. She doesn’t pull away instantly, but eventually settles back onto her feet.

“You were the love of my life also.”

alexa play love of my life

“I used to think that maybe you were just the right person but at the wrong time. You know? Like maybe there would be a time for us. That there would be other chapters, but you would eventually be my epilogue. But I was wrong. I think you were the right person, at the right time, and we can blame the miscommunication trope all we want, but like you said, none of it was enough. So you were right, Reid. While things might have been different between us, they wouldn’t have been better.

i think they were the right person and wrong time i think if they had met after college when they were both early in their career, they would've ended up together

You loved someone else, someone I used to be, and maybe I’m still her, and maybe in some ways you’re still him, but it was never going to be enough, and we won’t be them again, at least not together.”

Just because you close the back cover on your favorite book doesn’t mean it doesn’t stay with you.

this is actually very true. your favourite book always stays with you

My chin rests on top of her head, and I feel her breathing sync up with mine, as if no time had passed, I wrap my arms around her tightly as she relaxes into me. Those embers between us glowing in recognition, but when we pull away, they will be extinguished once and for all. So we stand here. Absorbing the moment we didn’t let ourselves have before.

their breathing still syncing up 14 years later i'm going to kill myself!

Knowing that when I let go, we let go. We choose to breathe. The ember is out. It’s now just ash.

and now it is just ash

When I stepped away from him, there was a completeness I hadn’t felt before and I hadn’t expected to have now.

When he loved me, kiss by kiss. Laying them down over time like scrabble tiles to reveal the words that made up our story.

SCRABBLE TILES

As I got in my car to go home, my eyes welled with the tears that I had held back since I was nineteen. The admissions I never wanted to share. The emotions I never wanted to experience. But the only way to get through to the place of contentment and closure that I had pretended to have these years, was to experience them.

this is so true again. you need to feel and experience things to heal.

of my own life. The one I have built. The smells aren’t memories of cinnamon and cedar. It’s my reality of warm amber musk and freshly washed laundry. It’s brightly patterned wallpaper, and Elton John playing through the speakers. It’s the dogs barking at the sound of the door.

:')